Greek Comedy

My mum is a complete darling. But she has these habits, which tend to throw the rest of us into fits of helpless frustration. Me in particular, because I can never ever snap at my mum or yell at her. Not without feeling like a horrible, evil monster within a second of doing it anyway.

One of these habits is breezing into the living room halfway through a police drama/ sitcom and asking questions about what’s going on. What is he saying? Who is that? What did he just do? Is he like, you know, gay? Et cetera. It’s a little difficult to explain everything to her, especially if the agents have just caught a paedophile, who had ritualistically tortured and murdered over a dozen children, over fifteen years ago. Or if Chandler has said something particularly witty.

The other evening, my brother (who, rumours say, is studying for his engineering exams) was watching Troy on HBO, when my mum walked into the room. Achilles (that yummy, yummy Brad Pitt) was dying. He was hugging the vestal virgin chick and kissing her goodbye, before she took off with Paris. Mom looks at the scene closely for about half a second and asks, “Who is he? Who is she? His sister?”

I opened my mouth to say, he’s Frenching her for chrissake, how can she be his sister? When I suddenly realised who we were talking about. Ancient Greeks and Romans, for whom non-sexual relations between siblings was something that happened to other people.

I settled for “Erm…no. I don’t think so.”